The latest Google Doodle celebrates the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, which begins in the UK on Friday when the sun rises at 4.52am.

The doodle features an animation of five swimmers bobbing in and out of the water as a wave splashes over them. British internet users might be forgiven for taking it as a reference to the country's washout summer.

The solstice marks the peak of summer and takes place when the sun is at its highest point in the sky. After Friday, the days get shorter until the winter solstice on December 21 when they start to get longer again

The solstice begins in the east coast of the US at 1.04 am ET, but it will begin on Thursday night in places west of the Central Time Zone.

The summer solstice has been celebrated since ancient times and people still flock to prehistoric monuments like Stongehenge in Wiltshire to view the sunrise.